Blood Stains
by rosettique
Summary: Nothing escapes the redness of blood - not tears, not hands, not dreams.
1. Uchiha Itachi

Truly, the Sharingan was a curse.

Nobody knew that better than thirteen year old prodigy, Uchiha Itachi (or, thirteen year old killing machine, Uchiha Itachi), who was staggering away from the hospital, more in shock than in actual pain, after having dropped his baby brother for medical treatment.

When he was finally alone, away from the buzzing noises in his head and the screams he wasn't sure he made up – when he was finally alone in the thick of the forest, away from Konoha and his dead clan and Tobi and Sasuke – he held his hands before his face, stretching his fingers so, watching the dried blood cracking on the webs of his fingers.

When he was finally alone, and his hands and sword were stained as sinfully as his eyes, he understood, fervently, just how much of a curse the Sharingan was.

Years later, when he stood on a certain roof facing a certain rock, patterned beautifully with the Uchiha symbol, heading towards a certain child, the same one he left behind so many years ago, along with all his happiness and hopes, he was reminded once more of the lethality of the Sharingan's curse.

His vision was red, and blurry, and red. His Sharingan was a curtain of blood, draped prettily across his eyes. He could faintly make out his baby brother's silhouette. He roughly gauged the number of steps it would take from here to Sasuke, and he was fairly sure he could make it. He had enough breath, enough _will_ in him to make it.

And so he walked, trudging forward even though his feet felt like pillars of lead and titanium and granite mashed into one impossibly heavy weight, fighting to lift his hand to caress Sasuke's forehead again – though, he supposed caress was too tender a word when the action was more suited to be referred to as a _flick_ – and wasting his last thread of life on a smile and seven, eight words – he wasn't sure, he was too tired to count; had been too tired all his life, but he was finally able to collapse.

He supposed the words weren't wasted, though. It was meaningful. The spaces between the letters were stuffed with paragraphs of things he yearned to say but never could.

_"Forgive me, Sasuke. This is the last time." _

It was a good death, to be able to burn out and allow his brother's flames to take over.

It was a magnificent death.


	2. Hatake Kakashi

Kakashi had lost count of the number of people he had killed. If he had attempted to keep track of all their faces – if he even entertained the notion of carving the brief memories he had of them into his mind and never letting go and learning to live with himself, he would commit suicide.

He had learnt, after his first eleven kills, how to stop them from haunting his dreams. He remembered exactly the number of people it took for him to stop crying out at night at the imagined redness splattered across his shirt because there were only fourteen people whose faces he recalled with sharp detail – eleven thanks to the Sharingan, three because they were precious to him.

Obito was his first death, of course. Kakashi didn't exactly kill him – didn't penetrate his heart with his lightning blade or ensnared him in _genjutsu_, but Obito _did_ die because of Kakashi. If it weren't for his inaptitude – his inability to escape the falling boulder in time – Obito would still be alive.

Some nights, the guilt of knowing that he was the sole reason for Obito's death, and that Obito's death perfected his _jutsu_, made him stronger, better, was enough for him to vomit bile.

His second death, and the first one he felt truly responsible for, was Rin's.

At this point in the war, he had already witnessed more deaths than the number of days he had lived. He was even the cause for some of those deaths. However, with these deaths, he could pretend that he was killing for a better tomorrow, for a brighter future, for peaceful lives.

But Rin – Rin was a friend, a comrade, a teammate, a _girl_. Kakashi grew up with her – went to school with her, graduated with her, went on missions with her. Kakashi knew her favorite color, her dreams and aspirations and Kakashi knew her as more than just a pretty face with a kind personality. Kakashi made a promise to Obito to keep her safe.

And she had loved Kakashi.

Even though she had never told Kakashi herself – there was that one time right after he killed Obito, but Kakashi stopped her from saying the words, fearing it would be too cruel for Obito's spirit to hear them – Kakashi knew.

The third death was Minato-Sensei's. It wasn't his fault – he knew as much. It's just, whenever he thought about it, there was always this nagging conscience at the back of his mind saying that he could've _done _something and that he could've at least helped, somehow, instead of remaining in the safety of the forest while his Sensei and Kushina sacrificed their lives for him – for all of them.

The other eleven were his first eleven assassinations.

At 28, Kakashi had lost count of the number of people he had killed. If he had attempted to keep track of all their faces – if he even entertained the notion of carving the brief memories he had of them into his mind and never letting go and learning to live with himself, he would commit suicide.

But, at 28, even though the images of wrangled limbs and gutted stomachs were starting to muddle, and the red of blood was graying out more and more each day until they turn into pools of colorless liquid, a rose, startlingly beautiful still bloomed in the monochrome sea.

It was Rin, with blue engulfing her, with his hand piercing straight through her chest, so deep that he could feel her muscles contracting around his arm and the remnants of heartbeats thudding against his hand from a heart that was now ripped in two, so far in that he could feel her back against the pads of his fingers, as if, with a slight push, his hand would burst out of her.

Rin, with red in a psychedelic circle around the gaping hole in her chest, the very one Kakashi had to pull his arm out from, littered with goose bumps, all the while feeling sinewy shreds brush against him and resisting his pull so firmly it was almost as if Rin was trying to suck him back in.

Rin, with lifeless eyes and a pitiful smile and lips that mouthed '_Kakashi_' one final time before falling into something more sinister than slumber.


	3. Uchiha Sasuke

It was hard to decide whose life played out as the saddest tragedy, or the happiest comedy, when the people of the Sharingan were put together. The cursed eye does not discriminate - no matter if one was an Uchiha or a complete stranger to the bloodline, as long as one could tap into the powers of the crimson, bleeding eye, one's fate was cursed.

Sasuke had always considered himself the saddest tragedy. However, now that he knew of Itachi's life, he wasn't so sure.

Maybe that was why Sharingan-users had a skill like Amaterasu so conveniently at their disposal – it was for those of the cursed eye to find an excuse to bleed their pain out. It was for those who were too strong and for those who had only managed to survive for as long as they had because of the walls upon walls upon walls they had built around themselves.

It was for the people of the cursed eye, renowned for merciless souls and an endless well of vengeance fueling their actions and skills superior to everybody else's – it provided them with a reason to cry, even when they did not realize they needed to.

So, perhaps the Sharingan wasn't as unjust as it was made out to be. Perhaps it was cursed itself, and was only trying to help those wielding its power, so that they may enjoy life better than it did.

However, even if he had only used Amaterasu once – watched as his eyes spat black flames at Tobi's figure, burning him up (_why wasn't he burning up?_) and licking him with tongues made of ashes – he understood that fake tears in the form of blood couldn't make up for the real thing; that, even though the Amaterasu was powerful and almost undefeatable and a bundle of pain to his left his eye, nothing hurt more than the dull ache in his chest.

He tried clawing at his robes, hoping for some way to dig the pain out, but it was to no avail.

When he couldn't stand it anymore, he freed himself from Tobi's dank confinement and climbed the rocks facing the sea – allowed his tears to dance as vigorously as the waves, crashing upon each other like it was the only way to get through today.

And then, he felt minutely better.


End file.
